Lunar Kugelhaus 2028

Das Kugelhaus was a ball-shaped house building in Dresden designed by the architect Peter Birkenholz in 1928. It was demolished by the Nazis in 1938.

This futuristic building inspired me for a lunar structure, Lunar Kugelhaus 2028. Inflatable structures had been proposed for the space. However, they are not very practical while even a tiny hole from a micro meteorite would deflate it and make it useless. On the other hand, a spherical two walled structure filled with lunar regolith would be an adequate solution. I got my inspiration from the sandbags used in tranches to stop bullets. The lunar regolith filled walls would protect the inner structure from micro meteorite showers. Contribute to the thermal insulation of the walls. It may even stop tiny air leaks. Only the inner wall needs to be airtight. The outer wall would just hold the regolith in place.

Lunar Kugelhaus would be send to the moon folded like an umbrella. Once landed safely, it would be unfolded to form a structurally strong spherical shape. This design increases the living volume compared to the cylindrical ones. Eliminating thick and heavy shields reduce the weight. The lunar regolith can be lifted to the top of the structure using a bucket elevator.

This foldable spherical structure can also be used on Earth. The inner void can be filled with the most abundant material available in the surrounding. In Antarctica with ice (like an Igloo), in Sahara with sand. Filling the void with such material makes the light weight structure stronger and stable against the snow and dust storms compared to traditional tents.

The Lunar Kugelhaus can be deployed on the moon in 2028 just at the centennial of the original one.

Pallas

Ulysses was a robotic space probe whose primary mission was to orbit the Sun and study it at all latitudes. Ulysses was put to orbit using "gravity assist" of Jupiter through a long adventurous journey. It was launched in 1990 and stayed in operation until 2008.

The Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing probe which will also perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun. It performed two gravity-assist maneuvers around Venus and one around Earth to alter the spacecraft's trajectory. It was launched on 2020 and planned to operate until 2030.

Pallas is a dwarf planet which orbits the Sun every 1,680 days (4.60 years), coming as close as 2.13 AU and reaching as far as 3.41 AU from the Sun. Pallas is about 513.0 kilometers in diameter. It completes a rotation on its axis every 7.81 hours.

With an orbital inclination of 34.8°, Pallas's orbit is unusually highly inclined to the plane of the asteroid belt. The high inclination of the orbit of Pallas results in the possibility of close conjunctions to stars that other solar objects always pass at great angular distance. This resulted in Pallas passing Sirius on 9 October 2022, only 8.5 arcminutes southwards, while no planet can get closer than 30 degrees to Sirius.

The summary of all of these is, a space telescope deployed on Pallas can be used to observe our solar system and beyond from a perspective no other satellite could achieve. There are no complex and time-consuming gravity assists needed to go beyond the solar plane. Just land an explorer with a telescope on Pallas while it crosses the solar plane. Much lower gravity of the dwarf planet would allow a smaller and lighter lander stage. Additionally, its relatively small diameter allows the moving space telescope to be positioned on the extremes of Pallas. Placing the explorer on the sun opposing pole would allow deep space exploration like James Webb telescope. Moving to the other extreme would make it a solar probe.

Ceres

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it's the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. NASA spacecraft Dawn approached Ceres for its orbital mission in 2015. Dawn found Ceres's surface to be a mixture of water, ice, and hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Ceres is one of the few places in our solar system where scientists would like to search for possible signs of life. Ceres has something a lot of other planets don't: water.

From an average distance of 413 million km., it takes sunlight 22 minutes to travel from the Sun to Ceres. Ceres takes 1,682 Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the Sun. As Ceres orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 9 hours, making its day length one of the shortest in the solar system. Ceres' axis of rotation is tilted just 4 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. That means it spins nearly perfectly upright and doesn't experience seasons like other more tilted planets do.

Ceres is more similar to the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) than its asteroid neighbors, but it is much less dense. One of the similarities is a layered interior, but Ceres' layers aren’t as clearly defined. Ceres probably has a solid core and a mantle made of water ice. In fact, Ceres could be composed of as much as 25 percent water. If that is correct, Ceres has more water than Earth does. Ceres' crust is rocky and dusty with large salt deposits.

Ceres is covered in countless small, young craters. The lack of craters might be due to layers of ice just below the surface. Within some of Ceres' craters, there are regions that are always in shadow. It's possible that without direct sunlight, these "cold traps" could have water ice in them for long periods of time.

Ceres has a very thin atmosphere, and there is evidence it contains water vapor.

I guess this is enough information to justify a mission to Ceres compared to searching for water on Mars.

The Asteroid Belt

In my previous articles, I proposed a planetary rocket. It would be used to explore our solar system further. After making some research, I concluded that conducting preliminary research on protoplanets in the asteroid belt would be more beneficial for the humanity compared to researches conducted on Mars. Protoplanet exploration requires slightly more powerful rockets compared to Mars missions like the one I proposed earlier.

The asteroid belt is full of space bodies with different characteristics. With a distance between Mars and Jupiter, lots of scientific research can be conducted. The asteroids have way less gravity compared to the planets and their moons. As a result, safely landing on them does not require big and heavy landing stages. Additionally, their way smaller surface area allows thorough exploration of the space body.

Only Mercury, Venus, Mars and the moons of the outer planets allow surface exploration. Mercury is very hot. Venus is also very hot and have a very chaotic and dense atmosphere. The moons of the outer planets are very distant from Earth. That leaves Mars and the asteroid belt as a feasible research zone.

Some of the protoplanets in the asteroid belt have interesting properties well forth exploring for.

1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta

The Fourth Stage

Since the beginning of space exploration, humanity could only send surface explorers to Mars with few exceptions. Main reason for that is the time it takes for a payload to reach the planets. We need to increase the payload’s average speed during its long voyage. In my planetary rocket design, I dedicated the fourth stage for that. This stage needs to generate high thrust like the previous stages.

An option can be to have a liquid methane engine to generate high thrust. For this task, a highly efficient but small engine can be developed. As a result, the thrust would be generated over a longer duration and the rocket would not be stressed by high g-forces.

Another option would be to use ion thrusters. However, a special engine needs to be developed to generate enough thrust for the heavy rocket. The gasses used in ion thrusters are quite expensive and supplying large volumes to satisfy the thrust requirement can be quite expensive. Additionally, ion thrusters require electricity for the thrust. While travelling away from the sun, not much electricity can be generated and protruding solar panels may not be reliable.

My proposal is a rocket stage filled with dry ice and Plutonium 238 heated nozzles. The idea is to convert small portions of dry ice into carbon dioxide and eject it from a tiny nozzle. The details are shown on the diagram. A Pu 238 tube with tiny holes on its sides would be used to heat the dry ice and pressurize it to generate thrust. The tube would be initially covered by an insulator low melting plastic that leaves no residue. This shield would prevent the dry ice from premature melting. The delay is the duration for the lower stages to complete their duties. Once the insulation melts away by the heat of the isotope, the rocket would start generating thrust. This is a much simpler and reliable design compared to the rest. Utilizing heat generated by radioactive decay gives the stage high ISP. The carbon dioxide gas would be exhausted from a tiny hole to accumulate higher pressure inside. This also increase the duration of the thrust generated.

The stage would be covered by a detachable heat shield. This shield would keep the dry ice cold during the atmospheric escape. Once the rocket is in LEO, the shield would be released to reduce weight. The released shield would than burn away in the atmosphere.

This simple stage can be cascaded to generate even more thrust.

Five Stages of a Planetary Rocket

The planetary space missions are the most complex and energy intense missions of all. By planetary missions I mean deploying a probe or explorer on the surface of a planet. Due to limitations of current rockets, only small probes and rovers could be send. With a purpose build rocket, we can explore our solar system better.

As a starting point, an economical rocket family can be developed. It would be configurable to suit missions. As a single rocket, it would be able to deploy LEO and geostationary satellites with its first stage recovered. Most probably a rocket with a maximum diameter of 5 meters would be enough for the task.

It’s not economical to recover stages beyond the first stage. As a result, the upper stages should be optimized for single use only. The objective of the second stage would be to put upper stages into low Earth orbit. LEO and geostationary missions would only have two stages.

In order to deploy heavy payload to the moon, at least three first stage rockets would be strapped together. The second stage would be a single rocket, so as the third stage.

Ideally, the first three stages of the rocket would utilize liquid methane engines with optimized nozzles. Utilizing the same engine in all three stages lower the costs and increase the reliability of the rocket while you can perfect a single engine compared to multiple ones.

The fourth stage would be used to accelerate the upper stages further to reduce the time to reach the planets. Ion thrusters can be an option. I also would like to propose a simple dry ice thruster powered by Pu 238 (details on my next article).

The fifth stage is a question mark. It would be used to safely descent the payload to the surface of the planet. It would be fired after many months of space travel. I don’t know if a liquid methane engine can be cold started in such a circumstance.

The Forgotten Stages of Rocketry

I have recently proposed a Mars Research Base. An adequate rocket is required to implement it. The rocket should have five stages. The first one can be a reusable heavy lift rocket. The second one would put the upper stages into LEO. The third one would free the upper stages from Earth’s gravity. The fourth one would guide the upper stages during the long journey to Mars. The fifth one which carries the payload would be used to descend the payload safely on Mars.

Almost every spaceflight company on Earth is working on their reusable first stage. Some even try to reuse the second stage as well. However, the upper stages get almost no attention. “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link”

Companies claim that they would conquer Mars with their two stage rockets. I give no chance to such designs. Even the government agencies are in the same mindset. The physics of rocketry has not changed since the Apollo program. An efficient rocket needs to get rid of its additional weight during it journey in space. That’s the reason we have stages.

On my next articles I would like to detail the upper stages of a high payload planetary rocket which are omitted by the others.

The Analyst

In recent years, I started to see more and more poorly designed product and services. I attribute the problem to poorly executed cost cutting measures and too much reliance on AI. The company's profit comes from the service they provide and the products they sell. Poor services and products result in reduced profits which intensifies the company’s cost cutting measures. In my opinion, the last place a company should cut costs should be the development of products and services. If this department is under employed and lower salary subpar employees are hired, then the company should prepare itself for bankruptcy or takeover.

From my observations, I conclude that the key role within a company is The Analyst. When analyses are made correctly which includes finding the alternative solutions, the success is inevitable. The complex engineering calculations and coding can be delegated to AI. However, it requires proper analysis which is a human task.

Analysis requires knowledge of many subjects. Good analyst doesn’t need to excel in any of them. However, need to be able to combine these knowledges whenever necessary. A good analyst should be able to ask the right questions to gather information which would guide him/her during his/her inductive reasoning, like Sherlock Holmes. When a company bases its products or services on successfully conducted analysis, the company would easily differentiate itself from the competition.

Previously, this role was assumed by non-engineers. AI has taken over most of the engineering tasks. As a result, new engineers should be taught to be good analysts who can look at the world from a wider perspective.

Better analysis solves more problems instead of creating new ones. This is beneficial for the societies that struggle in ever increasing number of problems.

Mars Research Base

I had recently proposed a Mars Lab Station. It would allow samples gathered all around Mars to be analyzed in orbit. However, transferring the samples from ground to the orbit requires single use expensive rockets. Sending one for every sample would be prohibitively expensive. I would like to propose an alternative based on my previous ideas.

A Mars Lab Base that would be deployed to a central location on Mars can serve as a stationary analysis base. The samples would be collected by the Mars STOL airplane. Once the samples are gathered, the aircraft would return to the base. The samples would then be transferred to the Lab using Mars Service Robot. The service robot would also conduct simple maintenance work for the aircraft. It would patch small holes, clean and oil parts.

The Lab Base, the aircraft and the service robot would utilize Plutonium 238 as the energy source. (explained in previous articles)

This setup requires at least three independent missions to Mars. One carrying the Lab Base, the second carrying the STOL aircraft and the last one carrying the service robot and maintenance materials. In order to cover more areas, these three missions would be repeated for each additional region.

Mars Lab Station

Mars rovers have limited payload. Therefore, they cannot conduct all kinds of analysis on the samples. That is why, Mars sample retrieval missions are planned. However, bringing samples to Earth requires big rockets with multiple stages. Such rockets do not exist at the moment. More importantly it takes months for a sample to reach Earth. During this time some of the samples may degrade even with proper preservation.

I propose a Mars Lab Station for robots only. It would orbit the planet like ISS orbiting the Earth. This lab would turn any sample retrieval mission to an LMO (Low Mars Orbit) mission compared to a mission from Mars to Earth. This would require much simpler retrieval rockets. Additionally, the samples would be processed much faster with minimal degradation. Finally, moving advanced lab equipment to the lab from the surface rovers would make the rovers simpler and more agile.

Mars has stronger gravitational anomalies than Earth. As a result, any orbiting object requires more maneuver and more fuel to stay in orbit. NASA had thought of missions to deploy satellites to Mars, but abandoned them all. However, establishing an orbital lab is more beneficial for the future compared to single shot missions to retrieve samples to be analyzed on Earth.

This idea can be generalized to other planets such as Venus and Mercury Lab Stations.

Mars Mission 1

I thought of a series of Mars missions which allow the humanity to gather much more information compared to the total of previous missions. The key to achieving this goal is to plan a bigger mission composed of smaller missions to achieve it. The key to explore more of Mars depends on the energy source of the surface explorers. Unfortunately, solar energy beyond Earth is very limited and creates a bottle neck for the missions. Like Earth, Mars also has day and night and seasons which dramatically affect the already low solar energy capacity.

I had previously proposed Plutonium 238 as the critical energy source for space missions. Previous space missions (to the moon) that utilized this isotope tried to generate electricity directly. This resulted in very poor energy conversion rates. However, Mars has atmosphere where Moon lacks. It is mainly carbon dioxide which has the highest vapor pressure of any gas. Heating the cold carbon dioxide gas with Pu₂₃₈ to generate pressure is very feasible. The generated pressure would be used to operate the pneumatic actuators and generate electricity. This method has way higher energy conversion efficiency compared to other methods and the solar energy. A proper planetary robot which has legs instead of wheels would be able to explore large areas on the surface of Mars. The additional explorations can be conducted on the shadows and at night. Even underground caves can be checked briefly. This method of electric generation would not be affected by the ambient temperature while it requires no chemical batteries. The consumable carbon dioxide gas is available all around the planet which pose no travel restriction. More energy means more distances can be travelled, drilling can be deeper and other energy intense tasks can be conducted.

On my next article I will explain how is it possible to analyze the Mars samples in detail.

Life on Planets

The formation of life is a complex and long process. In summary, life forms where there is water or similar liquid that is solvent and transporter of molecules. The temperature should be adequate for chemical reactions to happen and stable enough for sustained chemical cycles. This last one is my addition, the medium where the organic materials converge and form a living cell should be relatively still like the puddles. Once an organism is formed and it starts reproducing itself, it can spread to harsh environments and stay alive there as well.

When we look at the planets in our solar system, there is no planet that satisfies all these criteria other than the Earth. The planets and their moons beyond Earth are cold and wouldn't allow complex organisms to form. There may be primitive organisms that adapted to their extreme surroundings. Jupiter and Saturn moons that have geysers have the highest potential for life. Planets closer to the sun are too hot for life forms to form. The clouds of Venus may contain traces of organic material. However, the turbulent atmosphere of the planet is not still enough for such molecules to combine and form life.

I am not an expert on the topic. I derived my conclusions, based on the scientific materials I read and my observations. There would definitely be life on exoplanets similar to Earth. However, due to laws of physics, these life forms cannot interact with each other because of the immense distance between them.

Mars STOL Aircraft

I had previously proposed a flying aircraft for Mars. Daniel Riley’s YouTube video on “Blown Wing STOL Plane” inspired me for a new design. Daniel had proposed hidden air blowers inside the wings to increase Coandă effect and enable STOL (short takeoff and landing). In my design, air entering from the intakes below the wing will be accelerated by the heat of Plutonium 238. Mars atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide that has the highest vapor pressure of any gas. This improves the efficiency of the system. The forward thrust will be achieved by Plutonium 238 powered Carnot engines that drive the duct fans. Air blown on the wings reduces the takeoff and stall speed for the plane. Therefore, the heat generated by the Plutonium 238 isotope would be enough the fly the plane.

The aircraft will have bicycle like spoked wheels. These will enable the plane to accelerate on the ground and protect the wings in case of crash. The wheels should be elastic enough to return to their original shape after impact. The central wheels will have the spokes covered. They will double as vertical stabilizers during flight. The wheels will have larger diameter than the wings to protect them against the surface rocks. Plutonium will produce continuous thrust which will keep the wings in the horizontal orientation even on the ground. The plane will navigate on the ground using this thrust. The maneuvering will be achieved using differential thrust.

The small fuselage of the plane will contain the central control unit and the scientific research bay which is powered by Plutonium 238.

Mars STOL aircraft will be deployed to Mars inside a cylindrical capsule, an ideal shape for a space payload. The capsule will have four engines to slow down the capsule after entering the Mars atmosphere. The propellant tanks will be placed inside the empty spaces between the wings and the wheels. Once the propellant is depleted, the aircraft will be released from the capsule to let it fly by itself. The empty capsule will than crash on Mars.

On the Healthcare Industry

My recent negative experience on healthcare system, led me to write this article. In recent decades, healthcare industry started to be treated as a profit center for countries like tourism. This led to building of charming architectural buildings, named modern hospitals that are poorly designed in terms of functionality (complex layout for the patients who need to move between services). Additionally, too much focus on profitability led to inflated treatment costs and subpar service quality.

As a result, public healthcare deficit increased dramatically. This is a problem I couldn’t find a proper solution to. The key part of the solution is not to treat healthcare system as a profit center for the country which inflates the costs. Actions should be taken to reduce the treatment costs which includes the time and money.

Another topic regarding healthcare is the lack of multidisciplinary thinking. Human biology is too complex for any individual to master it perfectly. Additionally, a solution that works in most cases doesn’t mean that it would work in all cases. I have a very bad experience with that. My dad had ALS disease. A month ago, he started to choke while eating. The choking didn’t stop for a while and we called for ambulance. The healthcare personal injected medicines to improve his respiration. However, due to his ALS disease the medicines had the opposite effect and he needed to be intubated which led to his death. I am not a fan of applying AI to everything. However, in my case if the doctors have consulted AI, a different medication could have been used.

My proposition is that we need multidisciplinary doctors who can see the big picture. They would be able consult and coordinate with the specialists and AI during their treatment. New generation of doctors should be thought to work in coordination with AI. Critical point on this approach is to develop the coordination process such that the doctors should not turn into dummy users who just repeat what AI had told them. This is also a security problem for a country. Too much reliance on AI may be taken advantage by the enemy hackers and manipulated AI results would result big healthcare problems.

How To Protect Your Rocket?

The satellites are critical for a country’s military defense and offence. However, their launch is very susceptible to interception by a ballistic missile. During launch and at lower altitudes, the rockets are protected by the fighter jets. However, compared to the journey of a rocket, this protection is very limited.

During World War 2, the vulnerable bomber planes were escorted by fighter planes against the enemy attacks. This was the norm until the introduction of B17 Flying Fortress. B17 could defend itself and didn’t require fighter escort. This idea can be implemented on the space rockets as well. Not all rockets need to be in this configuration. However, during time of dispute and war, such self-defending rockets would be very beneficial.

A self-defending rocket can be implemented using the synergy rocket formation I proposed earlier. In short, it is a rocket formed by strapping at least three similar rockets together in a closed loop formation. With such a configuration, the rocket can carry different payloads in each of the independent payload bays and one can have anti-ballistic missiles.

Trafalgar in Space

The satellite clusters orbit the earth like a railway train pointing at the same direction. I imagined a satellite outside of this cluster at a higher orbit perpendicular to this formation. It reminded me of the Battle of Trafalgar. Then, I thought of an offensive tactic to annihilate the enemy satellite cluster.

The offensive satellite would orbit at a higher altitude than the targeted satellites. It would not have protruding solar panels to minimize damage from space debris. It would be mainly a flying propellent tank with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The liquid hydrogen and oxygen would be used to maneuver the satellite during attack and power the electronics on board with hydrogen fuel cells. Carbon nanotube bullets would be used to shot down the enemy satellites. The bullets would be accelerated using the hydrogen and oxygen on board.

The offensive tactic would be simple dive into the targeted satellites orbit with the use of liquid propellent thrusters. During this dive the satellite would retain its orbital speed. It’s like a floating submarine dive underwater using its propellers. Once the propeller stops, the submarine would slowly surface again. In case of satellite, high orbital speed (centrifugal force overcoming the gravity) would push it back to its higher orbit slowly. Due to attacking satellite’s higher speed compared to the other satellites in that orbit, the attacker would pass over them. As it passes by it would shoot back at the satellite in target like a Mongol Archer shooting back while riding his horse. This would allow the debris to be left behind and opposite momentum generated by the bullet fire to add to the satellite's forward momentum.

Once the attacking satellite’s fuel is depleted, it would Kamikaze dive on an enemy military satellite.

The Sounds of The Universe

We have been sending explorers throughout the solar system for many years. Those explorers contained many sensors onboard. Unfortunately, microphone was not one of them (Martian Perseverance rover carries two microphones). I would like to propose a series of small solar and planetary explorers that carry multiple microphones on board. There would be different types of microphones to capture different wavelengths. Even though, the space is vacuum and sound waves cannot travel in vacuum; the electromechanical sound sensors would pick up noise. The noise would be induced by the cosmic rays, gravity fields, and many more.

People are fascinated by the highly computer enhanced images captured by Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This fascination can be extended by the surround sound of the universe. The microphones are more durable and can operate at more extreme conditions compared to video cameras. Additionally, it is much easier to capture surround sound and play it. Almost all sound systems are stereo and there are more surround sound systems on earth than 3D TVs.

Venus and Mars have atmosphere. Martian Perseverance rover has recorded the sound of Mars. However, it is in mono and microphone’s sensitivity is limited. Flying small planetary explorers can be built to explore Venus and Mars which would record the sounds of the planets as they explore them on air. Venus’ extreme temperatures and dust storms make it difficult for a camera to operate. However, the conditions are acceptable for surround high bandwidth sound recording. Additionally, sound recording would require less electrical and processing power compared to video capture. Allowing smaller and lighter flying explorers.

Synergy Rocket Formation

I had previously proposed a synergy rocket design on April 21, 2025 and would like to improve on that design. The idea is to create synergy by combining at least three rockets in a closed formation in order to create additional thrust via air flowing between the rockets and reducing the complexity of recovering the first stage of the rocket.

In synergy rocket formation, the rockets of same type are strapped together in a closed formation. The objective is to enclose the air passing between the rockets. At the bottom of the rockets, there will be additional enclosures connecting the nozzles and directing the air flow. These enclosures will not protrude from the rocket walls not to induce additional drag. These enclosures will direct the air in line with the rockets’ direction of movement. The air passing by will be heated by the rocket nozzles to generate additional thrust like in high bypass turbofan engines. Unlike those engines, there will be no duct fan. Therefore, the thrust gain will be limited.

Strapped rockets would induce too much stress on the connection points due to differences on thrust of each rocket. In order to overcome this problem, each rocket nozzle will have controlled ventilation window that release some of the exhausted gas into the enclosed air bypass canal. As a result, thrust lost on ventilated exhaust gas on the engine nozzle will be recovered by the thrust generated by the bypassed air. This will change the direction of the thrust vector to minimize stress and improve maneuverability. Also increase the thrust generated by the bypassed air.

Only first stages of the rockets will be strapped. The upper stages will move independently after stage separation. The strapped rockets will have much higher base area compared to a single rocket. Therefore, recovering the first stage will be a much simpler problem.